


Requiem

by death_of_romeo



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-20 17:09:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2436419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/death_of_romeo/pseuds/death_of_romeo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[One of RT start listening to cassette they found in their new house, and get obsessed with it. The tape ends telling them to kill so they go out on a killing spree.]</p>
<p>Michael knew those tapes were bad news.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Moving in together was a huge step in any relationship. Michael and Gavin both knew that. Moving in to a brand new home together was an even _bigger_ step, but it was nothing that the pair couldn't handle. Besides, the house was being sold at a price so low and cheap that they would be practically _insane_ to pass it up. 

Right?

As with any new place, though, the last owners decided to be lazy fucks and leave some of their shit behind. Michael just wanted to trash it all. _It means nothing to us, it's useless!,_ he told Gavin once, twice, probably three times if he was being perfectly honest, but his words were just shoved aside because _Michael, look, they left a whole box of cassette tapes, let's listen to them!_

Now, Michael Jones never claimed to be the smartest man on the planet, but he had seen enough horror movies to know that screwing with stuff the previous owner of your house left behind was a horrible fucking idea. There was no way in _Hell_ that he was going to touch any of that shit. It wasn't fear, it was _fact_ ; messing with someone else's stuff was a bad idea, especially if it belonged to the past owner of your house. Yeah, he wasn't going to be caught dead messing with _any_ of that shit. 

Gavin on the other hand, he was different. He wasn't afraid of what could happen because, well, those were just movies, right? That was just the creation of lots of writers' imaginations. He didn't need to worry about some ghost coming out of the cassettes, or some demon possessing him or some evil spirit hunting him down and brutally murdering him. Those were all just outlandish stories, silly tales. Even if the movies frightened him beyond belief, and even if the spooky stories that Geoff told him sometimes still scared him late at night, and even if he still jumped when he heard something go bump in the night, he still wasn't afraid. No, because those were just scary stories. They were just pretend. 

Besides, if something super spooky showed up and decided to try and mess with them, Michael would protect them, right? Michael _always_ protected them. 

"You're not listening to any of those." Michael told him, and at first, the tone sounded somewhat friendly, casual. So, in typical Gavin Free fashion, he tried to pout his way out of it, tried to persuade his boyfriend to give in because _Michael, pretty, pretty please?_

"No." the lad continued. "You're not getting us into some weird demonic shit. You know the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat'? It'll be 'curiosity killed the Gavin', and I don't really want you to be dead. Alright?" 

Gavin just nodded, not knowing really what to say. He couldn't refute his friend's claims because, well, he _did_ have a point. But still, cassettes tapes never really hurt anybody.

Right? 


	2. Arche

Michael told him not to mess with them. He told him that it was bad idea, that something bad could seriously happen, that god _damn_ it, Gavin, _those things are dangerous and I don't want you getting hurt._

Michael told him not to mess with them.

But Michael was fast asleep right now, so what harm would it do to just go up there and listen to _one_ of them? Nobody would have to know, right? Just him and the attic, just him and the insulation and boxes and old, dirty cassette tapes that Michael told him not to bother with. It was a fool proof plan; sneak up there, quickly listen to one of the tapes, and get back downstairs before Michael woke up. It sounded easy enough, and despite the fact that Gavin wasn't quiet or sly at all, he still told himself that he would successfully accomplish it.

And so, he went; one in the morning, a pajama clad, flashlight-wielding, super sneaky Gavin Free slid out of the bedroom and quietly made his way down the hallway to the attic door. He pulled it open and gently, softly stepped up the ladder rungs, aiming his flashlight towards the far end of the attic floor when he finally stood steady within it. It was much darker than he anticipated, and far spookier than he remembered it being the other day, but that wasn't about to stop him. Not now, at least. He was already up here, there was no turning back now. 

He quietly stepped towards the box containing the cassettes and player, and for a split second, he felt a twinge of guilt for sneaking around Michael like this. He wasn't supposed to be up here, he wasn't supposed to be bothering with any of these things, yet here he was. That was bad, wasn't it? He was being a bad person, he was being disobedient, rude, disrespectful. He was being mean. He looked back towards the attic door, contemplated for a moment just heading back down, pretending like none of this ever happened.

But again, he was already all the way up here...

He looked back at the box then. _Maybe just a minute_ , he thought, _I'll just see what's on it, that's all._  

With one not-so graceful swipe of the hand, he opened the box, the other hand aiming the flashlight's beam inside of it. The tapes looked so dirty, so dusty, so _old._ The player didn't look to be in that good of shape, either, but that didn't stop him from trying to get it to work. That task only took about a minute or so, and he soon was holding the first tape in his hand, telling himself that _this is it, no turning back now, here we go_. He placed the cassette in to the player, pressed play, and waited. For a few seconds, nothing played. There was just silence, and silence, and more silence. He wondered if he did something wrong, or if the tapes were damaged beyond repair. He worried that this was a lost cause.

But then, it happened.

It was just one note. He wasn't a musician, so he couldn't say which note it was, but it was just one note. One steady, full, resonating note. It was scary, honestly, but...but one note couldn't scare somebody, right? They would have to be complete _children_ to just let one note scare them.

When the second note chimed in behind the first, that was when he was afraid.

But despite his fear, Gavin still could not put the player or cassette away. He knew that this was bad, he was _more_ than convinced now, but something inside of him thought and believed otherwise. Something inside of him wanted to keep listening to the steady sound of those two notes resonating and bouncing off of each other, like two warriors battling for survival, or two demons battling for superiority, or-

"What the _fuck_ , Gavin?!" Michael's voice broke him away from the music, and he quickly moved to take the headphones off, turn the player off, put it away. He dropped the flashlight in this process, the batteries knocking around and turning the light off within it as he did so. 

So there he was, an open box of cassettes as old as only God knew when open in front of him, a dead flashlight somewhere on the ground near him, and a very angry Michael Jones standing somewhere behind him. 

Truth be told, Gavin did not want to move.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to know what was on the tapes!" he defended, his fear being multiplied by the sheer sound of it in his own voice. With the music being gone, it was like there was a hole within him, and it was at that moment that he realized what addicts must feel like when their addiction was taken away from them.

He did not like that feeling.

"Oh, so you fucking _snuck_ up here in the middle of the god damn _night_?!" Michael spoke up again, and this only further frightened the Brit; he didn't mean to anger anybody, he didn't mean to make his boyfriend so upset with him, he didn't mean to-

"Huh?!"

"I'm sorry!" Gavin finally confessed, fighting back his fear and emotions in some attempt to stay strong. He didn't know why, of all the times, he wanted to be strong right now, but it may have had something to do with the fact that he was standing in pitch darkness with only Michael's angry voice to keep him company.

The attic was silent for a few moments then. The silence calmed him down a little bit, but it wasn't a calm that the lad wanted to feel; he didn't like the feeling of uncertainty, or fear, or whatever else was swarming around in his head right now. That music was bad, he _knew_ that it was. It had done something to him, it had messed with his mind, his head, it had-

"Gav, come here." Michael's voice was softer now, more welcoming. The Brit listened and slowly but surely made his way across the dark attic floor, soon enough finding himself inside of his boyfriend's warm embrace and _god_ , did that feel nice right now. He didn't want to move, didn't want to look around in fear of something being near them. Those cassettes weren't good, and he knew that, but something in him wanted him to keep listening to them.

He didn't want to.

"Can we please go back to bed?" he whispered a few seconds later, and Michael must have nodded or at least agreed in some capacity because the two were soon finding their way back to the door, the ladder, the actual house, the bedroom. Gavin didn't speak at all during any of this, as he was too afraid of what may be lurking in the dark; what if it heard him, what if it tried to get him, what if it tried to _kill_ him, what if it tried to kill _Michael_...

"Promise me you won't go back up there again." he heard Michael say once they were back in bed, and it took all that Gavin had to not say no; that wasn't a very smart thing to say, not now, not tonight. Instead, he said the only thing that would end the conversation and the only thing that would let him sleep tonight:

"I promise." 

 


	3. Beta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, promises were only made to be broken.

One whole week had passed since the incident. One whole week since he first listened to those tapes, since he first stood in the sheer darkness of the attic with only an eerie harmony to keep him company. One whole week of complete and utter _hell_ , with his mind flipping between _those tapes are dumb_ and _holy shit, I have to go listen to them again, I **have** to._

Gavin did not want to do that.

And so, he held it in. Seven whole days, he held it in, just passed off his anxiety as stress from work, stress from having just moved in to a new place. He tried not to look afraid when Ray jokingly suggested that the place was haunted, when Ryan added that maybe there was a spooky spirit or two lurking in the home. He tried to pass off those words as just his friends messing with him; they meant nothing. There was no reason to be afraid of the dark. Nothing was there.

Right?

He tried to not let it get to him. He tried to pretend that everything was okay. He tried to not think of the fact that, despite his every last desire and wish, his heart still craved to listen to those tapes again. He tried to not think of those two resonating notes, that somewhat off-kilter harmony that had pulled him in to a sort of trance that night.

He tried to forget.

He couldn't, of course, and by the seventh night, he was sneaking out of bed again, making his way back up in to the attic. He had to be careful, he had to be absolutely sure that he didn't disturb Michael. He couldn't let the man know about any of this, about how these tapes were the most beautiful (and most terrifying) songs that he had ever listened to because _no, he can't know, these tapes are **mine**. _

It was a little bit past one in the morning when he first started listening to them.

It started off as one note. One steady, full, strong note. The second came in soon enough, giving him that same old harmony from before. Others would probably call it creepy, scary, spooky, even. The more he listened to it, the less he believed in those descriptions; this music wasn't frightening, or scary, or spooky.

It was beautiful. 

Eventually, a third note began to play. Then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. A soft melody came in to the mix, and he just stood there, motionless. The music was moving, the melody flowing and flying through his headphones and seeping in to his blood stream, his nervous system. He could feel it, creeping underneath his skin, crawling in between his bones.

If he listened close enough, he could hear a voice.

He couldn't quite make out any words, but he was certain that it was a voice. He thought, for a second, that it was coming from behind him, that someone had maybe broken in to the house. Upon further inspection, he realized that the voice was, in fact, coming from the tape. This brought his attention back in and to its full capacity; what was this voice saying? Why was it involved as part of the music? Why?

He tried to pay more attention, tried to listen closer and make out some of the man's words:

~~_kill...revenge... **deserved** it.._~~.

To any other man, this would have sent them in to a hysteria. They would have pulled the headphones off, thrown the cassettes far, far away from them.

They would have ran.

Not Gavin, though. He was already far too engulfed in the music, the voice, the masterpiece that was these mysterious tapes left from the previous owner of the home. He continued to listen, continued to become more and more engrossed in the cassettes. So engrossed, in fact, that he failed to realize that someone was coming up the attic steps, grumbling angrily in an incoherent jumble of sleep and fear, disappointment and confusion. He failed to hear his name being called from only a few feet behind him, failed to realize that his boyfriend was _worried out of his god damn mind_ because _damn it, Gavin, **answer me!**_

When a hand grabbed his shoulder, forcefully turned him around, time seemed to slow.

( _ ~~kill him first.~~_ )

The voice in the tape went from whispered and disconnected from reality to suddenly very aware of what was going on. 

( ~~ _ **KILL**_~~.)

"M-Michael..." Gavin stuttered, but still did not take the headphones off.

( ~~ _ **HIM.**_~~ )

Michael went to take the headphones off, but Gavin flew a hand up to stop him.

( ~~ _ **FIRST.**_~~ )

Michael shoved his hand away, pushed the headphones off with such force, such animosity, that they slammed hard back in to the box behind his boyfriend.

"We're going back to bed." he spoke, and the tone meant that there was no room to question it. He took Gavin's hand, started walking back to the attic door and fucking _dragging_ the Brit with him. 

All Gavin could do was stare back in the darkness at the box of cassettes, the eerie voice from the tapes echoing over and over and _over_ again in his head;

~~_**kill** him first._ ~~

~~_kill **him** first._ ~~

~~_kill him **first.**_ ~~

"I'm fucking putting a lock on that door." Michael commented as they went back to their bedroom. "I'm gonna put a lock on it and only I am gonna know the fucking passcode."

All Gavin could do was apologize.

"I'm sorry." he replied, his voice quiet, soft, shaky. That stupid voice from the cassettes was still in his head and, honestly, it was bloody _terrifying_. "I'm sorry, Michael, I'm so, so sorry." 

( ** ~~ _kill him first_~~**.)

 


End file.
